


amaryllis, amaryllis

by meretricula



Series: Where Have All The Flowers Gone? [3]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-04
Updated: 2010-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-05 18:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meretricula/pseuds/meretricula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucy skipped down the street, laughing to herself. It was so strangely easy to be happy this summer, though she was keeping even more secrets than ever. But Susan was happy, because Lucy had stopped nagging her about Narnia and Peter and started asking about skirts and haircuts, and Mother was happy, because Lucy had stopped moping around the house and started going out with her friends, and Lucy, well. Lucy was happy because every week she went out and stopped being Lucy Pevensie, and became Valentine Kirke: Val Kirke went dancing and to the movies and was wildly in love with Edmund Pevensie, and nobody batted an eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	amaryllis, amaryllis

Lucy glanced in the mirror over Susan's dresser, checking her hair and makeup with as much care as a soldier his weapons before battle. "Suzy, do I look all right?"

Susan glanced up from her book and smiled. "You look lovely, Lu." She was in a good mood, so she overlooked the hated nickname. It lacked dignity, Susan thought, and the last thing she wanted was for one of the boys who followed her around to pick it up. But they were alone in their bedroom, and it was months since Lucy had picked a fight over frivolous things (lipstick and stockings and Peter, always Peter, as though seeing him across the breakfast table every morning that summer wasn't enough), and Susan really did love her sister. She hoped that maybe this summer's new-sprung interest in her appearance might mean that Lucy was finally outgrowing all her silly childish games. "Are you meeting someone?"

Susan meant it as a joke - Lucy wasn't like her, after all, with a boy to carry her books to all her classes and another to walk her home and another to take her out to dinner. But Lucy just smiled, a secretive, womanly smile, and said, "It's a secret." She turned and ran down the stairs before Susan could ask anything else. "Mother, I'm going out!" she called, and the door swung shut on their mother's questions.

*

Lucy skipped down the street, laughing to herself. It was so strangely easy to be happy this summer, though she was keeping even more secrets than ever. But Susan was happy, because Lucy had stopped nagging her about Narnia and Peter and started asking about skirts and haircuts, and Mother was happy, because Lucy had stopped moping around the house and started going out with her friends, and Lucy, well. Lucy was happy because every week she went out and stopped being Lucy Pevensie, and became Valentine Kirke: Val Kirke went dancing and to the movies and was wildly in love with Edmund Pevensie, and nobody batted an eye.

*

The idea of Valentine Kirke was born long before she was, first in unhappy silences and then in careful words. Edmund thought it was too dangerous to keep on sneaking around the house at night. Lucy wasn't willing to give up what little she had of Edmund - stolen kisses, long looks, whispered promises. Lucy couldn't have those things by daylight, but any other girl could. So all that Lucy had to do was become any other girl.

"Valiant. Val," Edmund said abruptly, one afternoon while Lucy was sitting by the window, unhappily watching the world go by as Edmund unhappily watched her. "You can be Val - Valentine."

"And you?" Lucy asked, without turning away from the window.

"There's no reason why Edmund Pevensie can't go out with a girl named Valentine," Edmund said. "I think I'll meet her at the cinema on Sunday at two. Maybe we'll go out afterwards so I can introduce her to my friends."

"I was thinking I might ring one or two of my girlfriends," Lucy replied placidly. "We could go out on Sunday afternoon, get out of the house. Do you suppose Mum would let me?"

*

Valentine Kirke, on this particular Sunday, met Edmund on a streetcorner outside a music hall. She kissed him hello and smiled at his friends, unapologetic although she was ten minutes late. "Hello, Val," the boys offered in ragged unison. Two girls hung back behind them - girlfriends, new to the group. They were duly introduced ("It's Valentine, really, but call me Val; everyone does,") and swept under Val's sheltering wing.

"Shall we?" Edmund asked, with an ironically courtly bow. Val put her hand on his arm and beamed as he led her into the music hall. Val loved jazz.

She drank soda that Edmund brought her and laughed with the other girls as the woman on stage bemoaned the men she had loved and lost. When the piano was slow and easy, she danced with Edmund, and when the trumpet blared loud and bright and brassy, she twirled about the hall with his friends. Edmund ran with boys who were a little wild - not that boys who went to public school were ever _very_ wild, but a little nonetheless - the kind of boys who would take a girl out to a jazz hall in a seedy part of town. Edmund could be wild, maybe, or maybe not; he had chosen his friends, after all, but he never seemed like them, though he never seemed out of place, either. They listened to him, Val thought, because something in them recognized that Edmund, even at his most staid and sedate, could easily be wilder than their sad public schoolboy antics could aspire to be.

The afternoon was over long before Val was ready to go, but there would be other Sundays for dancing, and maybe Friday nights to go to the cinema, and Saturdays to spend in clubs drinking cheap champagne. Edmund kissed his valiant Valentine goodbye and she went home, shedding Val Kirke like snakeskin as she wiped away her lipstick and buttoned up her jacket against the cool evening air.

Being Val, Lucy reflected, was closer to being Queen Lucy the Valiant than being plain Lucy Pevensie ever had been. Val Kirke was bright and funny and clever, and she danced to jazz and was adored by her court and could kiss Edmund Pevensie in public without fear. Lucy Pevensie had nothing but a secret eating at her like acid and a bitter never-ending war with her sister.

All in all, she would rather be Queen Lucy, and have Narnia and Aslan and Mr Tumnus, and that Peter and Susan would love each other again instead of lashing out with words at breakfast each morning, but she would take what she could get.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from a madrigal by John Wilbye, _Adieu, Sweet Amaryllis_. the text is as follows:
> 
> Adieu, adieu  
> sweet amaryllis.  
> For since to part your will is.  
> O heavy tiding  
> Here is for me no biding.  
> Yet once again  
> Ere that I part with you.  
> Amaryllis, amaryllis,  
> sweet Adieu.


End file.
